Car Throttle

Continuing along with the rest of the new stuff at NYIAS this year, welcome to Part 2 of our "best of the rest" coverage, a sort of all-at-once splurt of information to keep you up to date on the latest developments, without boring you to death with new paint colors for the Kia Optima.  Here we go. 2012 Subaru Impreza Sedan/Hatchback Subaru has finally come to their senses with the Impreza.  While it's always been a relatively fun-to-drive car even in non-turbocharged form, it hasn't really experienced great sales in the economy-car market compared to more conventional rivals.  The biggest reason would be the big-car fuel economy in a small, unrefined package.  The current Impreza 2.5i makes a fairly impressive 173bhp from it's single-cam 2.5L horizontally

Let's talk about the Caterham 7.  When the dealership took over production rights to the original minimalist Lotus sports car in 1973, I doubt they knew how many people would still be making copies and derivatives of it today.  Heck, I doubt they knew they'd still be making it today.  Wikipedia lists a few brands that make Lotus/Cateram 7 clones, copies, and spin-offs.  Here's their (surely incomplete) listing: Almac, Alpha Sports, Aries Motorsports, Barnard, Birkin, Boes, Brunton, BWE, Chevron, Chinkara, Cobra, Dala7, Daytona, Dax Rush, Diardi, Donkervoort, Elfin, Esther, Fraser Clubman, Gillett, Gregory, HKT, Irmscher 7, Leitch Super Sprint, Locust, Luego, Mac #1, Martin, Mitsuoka, MNRacing, MK, Nota, Pegasus 7, PRB, Quantum, RaceTech, Raw, Robin Hood(!), Shawspeed, Superformance (S1 Roadster), Sylva, Tiger, Tornado, Vindicator, WCM

One thing the world has no shortage of is limited-edition Mustangs. I'm not sure they make numbers high enough to count how many "special" Mustangs there have been over the years, but it's somewhere between "A gazillion" and "X, where X=enough+1."  What's a shame is that most of them are nothing more than silly tape-and-stickers packages.  GT/California Special?  Vinyl decals and some nice wheels.  Shelby GT?  Loud exhaust, filter-on-a-stick, a $10,000 Shelby badge and some chrome hood pins.  Bullitt?  A Mustang GT with less of the tacky Mustang GT stuff stuck on it.  Just fabricated specialness that any gearhead can see through at first glance. So when rumors started circulating that Ford would be bringing back the "Boss" Mustang moniker, I didn't get my hopes up. 

People tend to think of BMW as a German brand (obviously), but like most brands the Bavarian maker has long since diversified production. Many of today's BMW's do not come out of a plant in Southern Germany, but rather from a plant nestled back in the middle of nowhere, South Carolina.  Since it opened in 1994, the BMW Manufacturing Plant in Spartanburg, SC has produced all of BMW's "X" models (X3, X5 first and second generation, X6) as well as the Z3 and Z4 Roadsters/Coupes, and for a while the 318i and 318is.  It's a huge, modern facility that sits on 1,150 acres of land off of highway I-85, and these days it spits out around 160,000 new BMW's a year. While the plant itself is interesting

Here's an interesting tech tid-bit that I missed from the opening race of the F1 season: The Ferraris are running bio-fuel. Specifically, it's some sort of cellulosic ethanol blend that the boys from Maranello and Shell developed. Well that's pretty cool. Not that it will be enough to silence the naysayers, but it's still worth looking into. Before we get into that though, let me just say a hearty congratulations and salute! to Fernando Alonso for chalking up his first win (his first time out!) with the Scuderia. Good job on that, and the Maranello based tam looks to be formidable contenders this year. So what's the deal with this cellulosic ethanol then? For one thing, it's not entirely new. Corvette Racing and a bunch of

Lately, a couple of friends and I have been throwing around the idea of starting a racing team. Of course, since none of us have very much money, this would normally be impossible.  But, if you've been living under a large rock for the last few years, I have good news - there's a solution to this problem!  It's called the 24 hours of LeMons (as opposed to the real deal, the 24 Hours of LeMans), and it's just about the best thing to happen to grassroots racing since Spec Miatas. You can get all the nitty gritty details at the 24 Hours of LeMons website, but I'll lay out the basic premises of the series.  It's a 24-hour (mostly) endurance race that takes place over

Today, Maserati is a purveyor of what I like to call automotive pornography. They produce two products - the almost criminally good-looking Gran Turismo and the equally seductive Quattroporte.  Both sell for north of $100k, are chock full of Ferrari bits, and are absolutely wonderful, top-notch modern supercars.  This hasn't always been the case. Maserati returned to the US market in 2002, after leaving without saying goodbye in 1991.  They, like Alfa Romeo, were basically chased out of the US thanks to persistent rumors of suspect reliability as well as a less than favorable exchange rate which artificially inflated prices.  Many say that the reason for Maserati's failure in the US was the Biturbo.  Let's take a look at that car (and it's derivatives) and return to

My name is Jameson Riley, and I've just recently signed up to contribute to CarThrottle with motorsport related content. I'm a professional racing driver, having started in karts, and currently competing in endurance events. I was hired and drove for the Volvo Factory Team in SPEED World Challenge GT in 2004 and 2005 with the legendary Derek Bell as my teammate. Since then, I've driven in the American Le Mans Series, SPEED WC Touring Car, Grand-Am Rolex GT, Grand-Am KONI Challenge GS & ST, and I've even raced a STRANA Super Truck. My goal here is to be able to provide everyone with a racer's view of the automotive world. I'll post some suggestions for how to get involved in racing, past and current races,